This collection gathers a set of provocative essays that sketch innovative and interdisciplinary approaches to Genre Theory in the 21st century. Focusing on the interaction between tragedy and comedy, both renowned and emerging scholarly and creative voices from philosophy, theater, literature, and cultural studies come together to engage in dialogues that reconfigure genre as social, communal, and affective. In revisiting the challenges to aesthetic categorization over the course of the 20th century, this volume proposes a shift away from the prescriptive and hierarchical reading of genre to its crucial function in shaping thought and enabling shared experience and communication. In doing so, the various essays acknowledge the diverse contexts within which genre needs to be thought afresh: media studies, rhetoric, politics, performance, and philosophy.
This collection of essays and interviews investigates current practices that expand our understanding and experience of performance through the use of state-of-the-art technologies. It brings together leading practitioners, writers and curators who explore the intersections between theatre, performance and digital technologies, challenging expectations and furthering discourse across the disciplines. As technologies become increasingly integrated into theatre and performance, Interfaces of Performance revisits key elements of performance practice in order to investigate emergent paradigms. To do this five concepts integral to the core of all performance are foregrounded, namely environments, bodies, audiences, politics of practice and affect. The thematic structure of the volume has been designed to extend current discourse in the field that is often led by formalist analysis focusing on technology per se. The proposed approach intends to unpack conceptual elements of performance practice, investigating the strategic use of a diverse spectrum of technologies as a means to artistic ends. The focus is on the ideas, objectives and concerns of the artists who integrate technologies into their work. In so doing, these inquisitive practitioners research new dramaturgies and methodologies in order to create innovative experiences for, and encounters with, their audiences.
A rare entry into the nexus of science and art, this thought-provoking exploration introduces the ongoing research by scientists and artists into the fascinating subject of death and mortality. The unique practices of medical and scientific artists share a desire to piece the world together using the power of representational drawing. Their common belief that to draw is to see seeks to answer the riddles of mortality through the cultivation of their art, and what begins as an exploration of death ultimately becomes a celebration of life. This collection presents an introduction to the front lines of medical and scientific art, elaborating upon the ethos of their movement, and showcasing some of their greatest discoveries.
The conviction that the development and promotion of the arts, humanities and culture through the study of literature and the aesthetic are the fundamental constituents of any progress in society is at the heart of this volume. The essays gathered here explore the role of the imagination and aesthetic awareness in an age when the corporatization of knowledge is in the process of transforming literary studies, and political commitment is in danger of disappearing behind a supposedly post-ideological late-capitalist consensus. The main focus of the volume is the mutual implication of aesthetics and ideology and the status and value of different types of art within the political arena. Challenging issues in contemporary aesthetics are examined within the wider framework of current debates on the disappearance of the real, the crisis in representation, and the use of new media. The wide range of examples collected here, stretching from experimental poetry in post-war Germany, political commitment in twentieth-century French theatre, and countercultural Rumanian theatre under Ceaușescu, to Neo-Victorian fiction, Verbatim theatre in the UK, and political theatre for the masses in Estonia, vouchsafe unique insights into the intersection of aesthetics and ideology and the practical consequences thereof. As such, the volume opens up a space for a meaningful engagement with authentic forms of art from inside and outside the Anglosphere, and, ultimately, uses these examples as a platform from which to imagine some form of “aesthethics”, representing an ideal union of aesthetics and ideology. This concept, first coined by the French philosopher Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, will prove to be relevant both within the parameters of the examples discussed here, but also beyond, for the contributors to this volume are unanimous in refusing to believe that aesthetics and ideology can exist one without the other, and in recognizing the centrality of ethics in any discussion of these notions.
This handsome book peers into Troubleyn/Laboratorium, the workspace, collective art space, and creative incubator of Belgian multidisciplinary artist Jan Fabre (b. 1958), whose performances, staged since the 1980s, have brought him international acclaim and recognition. Expressing the collective aims of Fabre's theatre company, Troubleyn/Laboratorium functions as his workspace as well as a nurturing environment for the activities of his theater company and young artists alike, in which artists are free to develop and materialize their creative impulses. The building, situated in a progressive multicultural neighborhood in northern Antwerp, houses a uniquely integrated collection of art works from international visual artists, writers, theatre makers, and philosophers, with whom Jan Fabre feels a close affinity and whose works represent the overall cooperative spirit of the space itself. Fostering an environment that is as progressive as the artist's varied oeuvre, Troubleyn/Laboratorium provides the grounds for an idealistic hotbed of artistic activity and this publication offers a glimpse of that possible utopia. Distributed for Mercatorfonds
Over the past 20 years European theatre underwent fundamental changes in terms of aesthetic focus, institutional structure and in its position in society. The impetus for these changes was provided by a new generation in the independent theatre scene. This book brings together studies on the state of independent theatre in different European countries, focusing on the fields of dance and performance, children and youth theatre, theatre and migration and post-migrant theatre. Additionally, it includes essays on experimental musical theatre and different cultural policies for independent theatre scenes in a range of European countries.
Unique book addressing cooperative algorithms at the MAC layer Cooperative Communications: MAC Protocols focuses on issues pertaining to the MAC layer of wireless cooperative communication networks, offering a rigorous taxonomy of this dispersed field, along with a range of application scenarios for cooperative and distributed schemes to show how these techniques can be employed. The authors provide rigorous analytical tools for reservation and contention based MACs, as well as hybrids. This is complemented by an application of developed techniques to specific wireless standards. There is currently no book on the market which coherently discusses cooperative algorithms at the MAC layer. Introduces background, concepts, applications, milestones and thorough taxonomy of the field, along with a range of application scenarios Identifies the potential in this emerging technology applied to e.g. LTE/WiMAX, WSN Explores reservation-based, contention-based and hybrid cooperative MAC protocols, and applies rigorous mathematical tools to these Demonstrates cross-layer design to boost performance Addresses advanced MAC topics, such as opportunistic and network coded MACs Highlights future research challenges within the cooperative communications Includes an accompanying website ( http://books.cttc.es )
The Ritual Theatre of Theodoros Terzopoulos outlines the story of the Athenian-based Attis Theatre and the way its founder and director, Theodoros Terzopoulos, introduced bio-energetic presences of the body on the stage, in an attempt to redefine and reappraise what it means today not only to have a body, but to fully be a body. Terzopoulos created a very specific attitude towards life and death, and it is this broad perspective on energy and consciousness that makes his work so appealing both to a general public and to students of arts, theatre and drama. Freddy Decreus' study charts the career of Greece's most acclaimed theatre director and provides a spiritual and philosophic answer in times where former Western meta-narratives have failed.
